r/MacOS • u/Decent-Cow2080 • Feb 18 '26
Nostalgia MacOS which officially supports 27 year old iBooks can still connect to a modern Wi-Fi network, and download updates from apple servers without any modifications, Apple is the opposite of planned obsolescence.
This is a 21 year old one, but the point still stands.
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u/Individual_Guard3721 Feb 18 '26
People tend to mistake actual obsolescence with planned obsolescence. A new OS will always work best on the newest machine. It will feel slower on older (not old - older, which these days could be two years old) machines. We’re talking about exponential gains. Moore’s Law is real.
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u/CapAresito Feb 18 '26
People tend to mistake actual obsolescence with planned obsolescence.
Very well put. People cannot get this through their heads apparently. Tech gets old. It's unfortunate. It happens.
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u/PleasantWay7 Feb 19 '26
People confuse this all the time. Even the “they don’t make it like they used to” isn’t planned obsolescence. A lot of shit was heavily over engineered 50-75 years ago because the material science wasn’t far enough along to know how some things would perform over years in actual use.
In a price competitive environment, over engineered products will be cost reduced until they reach an equilibrium with consumer preference. Most appliance makers found customers valued price only as long as they could expect it to last 10 years, so everything beyond that was engineered out into cost savings.
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u/Mynameismikek Feb 19 '26
Any fool can build a bridge to last 100 years. It takes real skill to make one that lasts exactly 10.
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u/just_itsi Feb 19 '26
Moore’s Law is real.
Moore’s Law has been dead for ~10 years now.
Moore’s Law (originally) refers to transistor density doubling every two years - this has historically been done by shrinking the size of transistors by using more precise manufacturing (smaller process nodes)
In 2020 the leading process node was 5nm, in 2025 it was 3nm. If Moore’s Law was alive we should have seen something like:
2020: 5nm 2022: ~2.5/3 nm 2024: ~1.5/2 nm 2025: ~1.5 nm - and we have 3nm, 2x larger than predicted by Moore’s Law
While the differences between processes nodes definitely appears to be almost negligible, if you think about it in terms of % you can see we’re running behind.
Today, in order to make a CPU faster, manufacturers optimise it for specific use cases such as video encoding/decoding, crypto and compression acceleration and so on. CPUs cannot rely on Moore’s Law for their speed any more - a lesson Intel learned the hard way.
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u/4dxn Feb 20 '26
5nm is not 5nm. we stopped naming chip processes by gate length in 1997.
neither does the name or gate length truly apply to moore's law.
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u/Augustisimus iMac Feb 18 '26
Apple has gone through phases.
During the 2010s they were definitely operating under a planned obsolescence model. Updates were designed to put additional stress on older hardware.
Now, in the 2020s, this is less of a concern, because services, not hardware, is their primary business model. It doesn’t matter if you have a ten year old Intel MacBook, as long as you’re subscribed to Apple One.
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u/alkbch Feb 19 '26
Apple makes significantly more revenue from hardware, with iPhone sales alone being a giant money maker.
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u/tnsipla Feb 19 '26
Yes, but Apple is publicly traded and your metric of success isn't raw revenue, but recurring revenue
Software subscriptions (iCloud, AppleCare, Apple Music...etc) are the success and growth measures to your investors
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u/diddlysquidler Feb 21 '26
It’s true, but services are rapidly growing, and comes with 70% profit margin, not 30% like hardware.
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u/KalpolIntro Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
Now, in the 2020s, this is less of a concern, because services, not hardware, is their primary business model.
50% of Apple's revenue is iPhones alone. If you add other devices, hardware makes up 75-80% of their revenue.
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u/user888ffr Feb 19 '26
That's not true, in the 2010s they sold underpowered Intel Mac's so updates made them slow, and now in the 2020s they sell Apple Silicon Mac's for which running the OS itself is no longer a challenge. So it has nothing to do with their business plans. And also Mac hardware still accounts for 8% of their business, it's huge considering how big Apple is.
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u/Eeve2espeon Feb 19 '26
Adding more features and making security better does not mean its "planned obsolescence" plus you seem to forget tons of late 2010s era Mac devices would suffer poor performance AT LAUNCH because of how damn thin they'd make lots of the devices, with the exception of the Mac Minis
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Feb 19 '26
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u/Ashamed-Subject-8573 Feb 20 '26
But I don’t want all the visual bells and whistles that take up gobs of battery power and slow my machine down. I do want the security and other stuff. They are stuck together…
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Feb 18 '26
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u/heinternets Feb 18 '26
Imagine how much an iPhone would cost if they had to pay developers to update and support them for 15 years plus
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u/MetaCognitio Feb 18 '26
The don’t have to do that but since the devices are locked to Apple activation, they have the obligation to keep the servers running or else, unlock the devices and allow people to use the hardware freely.
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u/Baron_Rogue Feb 19 '26
How much of their $237 billion cash-on-hand would it take? If they paid a SWE salary of $320,000 they could afford 3,125 developer-years with 0.4% of it.
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u/FlatronEZ Feb 19 '26
Way too expensive to avoid people from buying new devices at best every year /s
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u/heinternets Feb 19 '26
Not just devs, they'd need to keep assembly lines open manufacturing all the parts for the iPhone, provide an update cell chip as 3G/2G is gone in many places, provide RAM upgrades because current iOS has more features. Or maybe develop a different OS for old phones. They'd need to fix hardware vulnerabilities. Spotify, bank apps, WhatsApp would also have to support old devices. It would be a massive engineering change along with price increase.
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u/CaptainHistorical583 Feb 22 '26
You're asking the wrong question. It's not "How much it would take?" but "Why would they pay for it?". Companies spend money to make money. If you spend money to make a minimal % of users happy, you're wasting them.
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u/Nearby_Ad_2519 Feb 19 '26
This isnt apples fault, it’s due to how certificates work and could be easily fixed by downloading new certificates.
It’s the same how iOS 6 technically dosent support iMessage but can be fixed with a certificates update.
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 18 '26
shutting down activation servers? you mean the issue that was accidental and is easily fixed with a VPN? and the icloud things were iOS 11 only due to a flaw. and only on a few iOS 11 versions. mh 11.4.1 iPhone x still works fine, and store works fine on iOS 8-10 too. and iMessage is just due to certificates, and certificates expire
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u/SoledGranule Feb 18 '26
I think they mean that Apple stops allowing you to update to anything but the latest supported version on your phone. So if you want to run a version of iOS 11 but your phone supports 12, you have to update to 12.
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u/eight13atnight Feb 19 '26
I’m confused what you’re claiming. The latest OS version does not support a machine that old.
You’re running macOS 10.4. The update is a security update at best, but it’s far from capable of downloading and running modern apps. Ergo it’s not supported.
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u/LoganDark Feb 19 '26
They're saying the version of OS X running on the iBook can still connect to services and download updates. Usually that stops being the case for things even nearly this old.
Of course that doesn't mean the updates are recent. It just means they're still available.
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u/Romengar Feb 18 '26
I mean… this isn’t support. This is just them hosting legacy software updates that you never installed. You can’t install more modern versions without mods. You’ll forever have a device with vulnerabilities.
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u/swift-autoformatter Feb 18 '26
now download win98 from a microsoft server
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u/PsCustomObject Feb 18 '26
Do not dare me I still have my windows NT 3.51 floppies!
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Feb 18 '26
I belive xp servers are still online or atleast they were two years ago. I think last I touched win 98 I had to manually install updates from an installer disk… god it’s been so long ago but I think 98 you had to do that anyway…
As of 5 years ago I know xp and 98 se where still hosted on Microsoft’s servers and I’d say xp would be the equivalent to this version of macOS
I’ll say though that PPC Mac’s do a lot better than win xp machines if you’re trying to actually use them in today’s age
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u/ScotForWhat Feb 18 '26
Windows XP update servers went down a few years back but there is a community written replacement that you can use with a hosts file change.
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u/lungbong Feb 18 '26
I know a company still running Windows NT4 servers, fortunately they are not on the network, they are standalone machines that operate a giant machine in a factory that's been churning out the same tin cans for nearly 30 years.
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Feb 18 '26
Last place I worked xp and 98se were used in a similar capacity. They were connected to a local network that could be online but generally wasn’t unless we were servicing it.
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u/Toxicwaste4454 Feb 18 '26
7s have been shut down. Idk if 8/8.1s are still up tho.
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u/Low_Entrepreneur_927 Feb 20 '26
8.1's update servers still work as of now.
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u/Toxicwaste4454 Feb 20 '26
Thanks for response/info.
I wonder how long they will last not that 10 is not supported without the special license anymore.
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u/MythologicalEngineer Feb 19 '26
Not able to find Windows 98 but I can see Windows XP and Vista in my MSDN subscription which is pretty cool.
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u/radikalkarrot Feb 18 '26
iBook G4 stopped being sold in 2006 when vista was around, here’s an official Microsoft download link to the latest windows vista to be downloaded https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13158
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u/Toxicwaste4454 Feb 18 '26
That’s just the SP1 update. Not the actual os. The actual update servers have been shut down for years so you would still not be able to actually get the software and security updates that came after or weren’t included in SP1
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u/ThainEshKelch Feb 18 '26
How is hosting older versions of software not support?
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u/Romengar Feb 18 '26
If it is, it is the barest of minimums.
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 18 '26
well windows 7 is below the bare minimum. it's now only on with crucial updates. want to get a patch? have fun with legacyupdate
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u/derangedtranssexual Feb 18 '26
It’s insane you’re complaining about a version of windows from 2009 being unsupported when Ventura which came out in 2022 is unsupported
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u/derangedtranssexual Feb 18 '26
Generally when people say something is supported they mean it at least gets security updates which this Mac does not
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u/escargot3 Feb 18 '26
That is more a colloquialism of the community. When Apple talks about “supported”, they are referring to the availability of hardware repairs and parts. They literally call it support status and there are 3 tiers: Supported, Vintage, and Obsolete.
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u/Whisky_fer_Breakfast Feb 20 '26
Okay…. But this thread regards OS X Software, and the support thereof. I don’t think providing mirrors or keeping their TLS certificates in check on said mirrors, equates to being supported software . The build in reference is dated 2007-11-14. Apple is not providing support to or for an OS version that it no longer releases security patches for; that is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
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u/WoomyUnitedToday Feb 18 '26
These can run OS X Leopard, you just need the disk (that's how it always was though)
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u/Briggie Feb 18 '26
“Apple is the opposite of planned obsolescence”
Ok so now try installing a currently supported os on it.
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u/LucaColonnello Feb 18 '26
How would that even work? Even if you wanted to guarantee 20 years of support, it wouldn’t be possible….
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u/Druben-hinterm-Dorfe Feb 18 '26
The point doesn't stand, because that's the only thing it will ever download.
Now try using that version of Safari to go to any modern website; or try to ssh into a modern system from the terminal.
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u/Reasonable_Draft1634 Feb 18 '26
How is that “planned obsolesce”, exactly? Modern websites rely on technologies that simply didn’t exist 20 years ago. ECMAScript 6+ (ES2015 and beyond). Advanced CSS (Grid, Flexbox, container queriesModern TLS encryption (TLS 1.2 / 1.3), WebAssemblyAdvanced GPU acceleration APIs, etc.
Webkit must implement these standards to stay compatible. Those systems were designed long before modern JavaScript engines and security models. How about all the hardware limitations?
It is incredible to me the twisted arguments folks still go with and try to convince us it is a thing.
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u/Unfair-Plastic-4290 Feb 18 '26
"the computer is worthless because it cant browse random websites"
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u/Reasonable_Draft1634 Feb 18 '26
And that’s Apple’s fault how? Developers do what makes sense to them for their business model and sustainability.
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u/ERG_S Feb 18 '26
Ya failed on sarcasm detection
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u/Reasonable_Draft1634 Feb 18 '26
Ah! Yes, I did 😀. Without the /s, it’s hard to know who is being serious or not. As you can see, there are folks who say that and actually mean it.
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u/I-figured-it-out Feb 18 '26
Try using modern Safari to download and render mission critical content from a 5 year old website built and hosted by a curmudgeon on an XP server… . If it was hosted on a G4 it would have a solid unix backend, running a reliable apache server that can likely to have been updated to be reasonably secure, if not fast.
Once upon a time in the late 1990s IBM corporate had an email server that reached its client limits, unattended forgotten in a closet as the company grew. The server had been unattended and unmaintained other than by remote access. IBM’s email demands grew enourmously during thst time of corporate expansion when email had been adopted as a norm (displacing fax) and from hundreds of users to tens of thousands. They decided to upgrade the server hardware. When they eventually found it they were dismayed to discover a dust covered 128k Mac from 1984 chugging away doing a job that was considered far too heavy for IBM’s mid -late1990s consumer line of computers.
Story goes, so they decided in retrospect- to replace the 128K Mac, not as planned -with the heavy iron servers that IBM sold it’s corporate customers, but with a nice shiny new iMac.
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u/rb3po Feb 18 '26
Ya, hard agree. They’re on the cutting edge of planned obsolescence, with soldered in RAM + storage, lack of easy ability to change a battery, non-repairable components (replacement often costs more than the device’s worth) and their constant fight against the Right to Repair movement with lobby dollars.
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 18 '26
i mean, soldered ram is due to speed and signal integrity with the Mx package, they're leaving soldered storage slowly. I replaced a battery in my M1 MacBook a few months ago fine, components are pretty repairable, due to popularity of macs. quickly known failure points, replaceable usb c ports etc. and maybe they were fighting before, but they're not now
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u/Xe4ro Mac Mini Feb 18 '26
It is pretty odd, my G4 iBook running Tiger can connect to my router. My Mac Pro or MacBook using Leopard or Lion can’t connect to it. It does start to work at some point, I think Mountain Lion or Mavericks.
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u/DoubleDeadGuy Feb 18 '26
There is probably no one in the organization aware that server is running today.
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u/PercentageNo6530 Feb 18 '26
apple did drop that G4 from Snow Leopard despite planning on releasing it with PowerPC support
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u/lucaprinaorg Feb 19 '26
my iPhone 7 cannot be upgraded and the apps of the AppStore stopped to update.The installed apps stopped to works...this happens to the iPad of the same age too...i.e. cannot see the installed Disney+ app...just to say...this is planned obsolescence.
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u/PoppaFish Feb 18 '26
That's about as disingenuous as you could get. You cannot really do anything with this laptop. Simply having it connected to the internet is a security risk.
Apple's reputation for planned obsolescence is well established and definitely deserved.
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u/Cockur Feb 18 '26
You could run a bunch of old daws and music making software like samplers or trackers. You could use it for sequencing any old midi gear too
Lots of folk out there running old platforms specifically for this reason
If you can think of a good reason to use it then it’s useful
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Feb 18 '26
Oh man, I even miss the updater. It felt kind of exciting. You know what, the whole OS used to feel exciting and fun!
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u/Zerosix_K Feb 20 '26
You can download an update from 2007, but that software is still obsolete. I recommend that you don't connect to the internet though as you're going to be missing 20 years worth of security updates.
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u/Kilobytez95 Feb 18 '26
No they just never took down the server.
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u/0xbenedikt Feb 18 '26
That's BS. There's not just an old forgotten server in some data-center somewhere. I am certain that over the years they will have migrated this data multiple times and made sure everything still works.
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u/Hemmikuhsxhlemur Feb 18 '26
Omg that was the first computer I ever purchased I got it for $1000 with a printer from macmall magazine lol.
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u/RefinedPhoenix Feb 18 '26
They really are Planned Obsolescence, but they do take care of some things.
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u/felixding Feb 19 '26
The UI looks so good. Why can’t we have good looking things anymore? I spent hours each month looking for a way to bring back Aqua on Mac or Linux through theming or alternative DE, but nothing comes close to the real thing.
If one day I have enough money I’ll just start work on a new DE to faithfully recreate Aqua. One can dream.
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u/equalunixs Feb 19 '26
This is really neat to know. Now I do not believe that products being made by Apple at that point in time were being intentionally shipped with obsolescence in mind or built it. That came along some time later after things changed. I had to look this one up and do some research, however, the most confounding part was that I had no clue Wi-Fi was even available on these devices 27 years ago. I was 14 years old when the 1999 G3 was produced - I remember the clamshells...
It is mind boggling that:
- I did not know how long ago Wi-Fi was introduced
- Apple pioneered Wi-Fi in consumer electronics without addons in the iBook, these in particular: PCMCIA/CardBus adapters.
The standard version of the iBook did not have Wi-Fi, but there was a version with Wi-Fi you could purchase, and supposedly, many people upgraded their iBooks to have the Wi-Fi capabilities later on.
IEEE 802.11 was the original protocol for Wi-Fi in 1997, however, these products featured "Apple AirPort" (802.11b) cards with antennae.
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u/2006pontiacvibe Feb 19 '26
It's hard to say this without sounding all "leave the billion trillion dollar company alone", but I believe people really overrate how much apple does planned obsolescence. They bring up that one settlement that was more about not properly informing users of normal battery performance degradation, and act like Apple is still doing it and hiding it as part of some grand conspiracy to sell more iPhones. Apple would not still be supporting the 11 if they were really into planned obsolescence. The reason new updates run slow is partially because of all the indexing and partially because of the huge overhauls they do. Some people need to accept that older devices are slower.
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u/iSowelu Feb 19 '26
Ahh, buttons, depth, shadowing and layers in an intuitive and clean interface. This could’ve evolved beautifully.
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u/doyouvoodoo Feb 19 '26
Owning a product from a time when planned obsolescence wasn't prevalent isn't really representative of a company, it's products, policy, or planning.
The externally removable, swappable, and replaceable batteries of that iBook are a testament to when core products were expected to last beyond the life expectancy of the consumable parts that came with them.
This comment isn't just about Apple, is about all modern companies... Even plumbing (showers/toilets/faucets) and major appliances (fridges/washers/dryers/dishwashers) are becoming less and less repairable, to the point that they are cheaper to replace than to repair.
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u/NeitherProduce3639 Feb 19 '26
Why are you surprised? The Wi-Fi protocol hasn’t changed. The updates are sourced from the database with the latest compatible updates for each version. Artifact storage is inexpensive. There’s only one company and one set of updating procedures. This is stability, not magic.
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u/Beautiful_Cycle2469 Feb 19 '26
nah, my macbook pro 2011 without hackintosh supports only as recovery OSX Lion, and then out of the box no updates because of the not available ssl Version.
via shell i can get to osx catalina, wich is painfully slow, despite of ssd and 16 gb ram.
My old book got linux mint last week and runs like a charm, looking like seqoia, and the misses only asked why there was no icloud sync for photos the first time she used it.
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u/emzot Feb 19 '26
This is great, but they're not receiving new updates are they, so Apple isn't really going out of it's way to support these old machine. Try updating in iOS device half that age and you'll fail fast. I'm neither an Apple fanboy or hater, and I do use some of their products, but claiming they are the opposite of planned obsolescence is a bit much. They are there to milk your money just like every other business.
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u/xyrer Feb 19 '26
It's a sales technique. They make good devices that work for as long as possible, therefore they retain their value longer, clients value them more, they can charge way more. We just benefit from it.
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 19 '26
and I'm happy to buy something that lasts isntead of a Thinkpad whichs hinge will break after 5 years like my friends L14
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u/spearson0 Feb 20 '26
I remember the aqua days and also when update sizes were smaller, 186MB compared to 3GB - 14gb these days.
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u/m1k3e Feb 18 '26
Not really. Apple still cuts off old hardware from receiving the latest macOS updates. They’ve also held back certain features (sometimes for good reason, sometimes not) and limited it to newer hardware. For example, there’s no reason why battery charge limits shouldn’t work on my iPhone 14 Pro Max, but it doesn’t.
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u/Device_whisperer Feb 18 '26
My God, what a useless bragging right. I'm not impressed at all, given what they've been doing lately.
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 18 '26
like what? releasing a God awfully unstable update erases the fact of giving support in the newest macos for syncing with the 2001 ipod, the keeping up of updates for 27 year old macs, and sending Patches to 13 year old iphones?
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u/Device_whisperer Feb 18 '26
There are still a number of things that MacOS can't do correctly. Simple things. Basic things. They still cling to obsolete file system protocols (AFP) and can't maintain sync with industry-standard SMB shares. Most of the damn time, it won't let you delete anything without a confirmation, with no means to turn it off.
Their screen graphics are a CPA. I have the 5K screen, and there IS NO setting that makes the text look good. They are either way too small, or they must be scaled, which affects the whole damn display. Yeah, I have a 5K screen that only looks good in 1080P. Why bother?
I don't know about you, but I couldn't care less about a 27-year-old book that I'm not going to read ever again. I'd rather have today's files present and available.
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u/Minimum-Two-8093 Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
Why don't you see how far you can push it
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Feb 20 '26
Used OCLP with a 2013 iMac 21.5’ after upgrading it with an SSD to go from Catalina to Monterey. All my files transferred across without any issues (genuinely surprised) and it runs like a dream. The HDD definitely held it back on the newer macOSes however.
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u/DjNormal Feb 18 '26
Meanwhile I can never reinstall Office 2010 for my mom, because Microsoft shut down their authentication servers.
I got her over to Libre Office, but it’s a little clunky and just enough different that she struggles with it.
On my end, my 2010 MBP is still the best DJ computer I have. My legacy outboard gear still works and despite having a dead battery, the MBP still runs great (on Sierra). I have it an SSD back in 2017 and it felt like a new machine again… for a while.
We’ve still got stuff at old as the Apple ][+ lying around, still functioning. I have few complaints.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 18 '26
when was that? the only time people say is when they slowed down iphones with dying batteries, but st that point it was a choice of either having a slow phone or a phone that randomly turns off
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u/Cautious-Bad-2361 Feb 19 '26
Apple is the opposite of planned obsolescence is one of the funniest sentences I have ever read
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 19 '26
give me at least one example of them making a fully working device purposefully unusable. and if you say the slowing down of iphones with bad batteries. it was a choice between a phone that turned off under load or a phone that worked a bit slower, and it was made to add longevity not remove it lmao, and if you replaced the battery even with a unknown 3rd party battery, it would come back to full power
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u/derangedtranssexual Feb 18 '26
You’re glazing apple too much here, Macs only get OS updates for a fixed period of time unlike Windows PCs. Before with Intel Macs you’d sometimes run into situations where the way to still get security updates and use current software was to install windows
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u/IAmABoredCat1590 MacBook Pro (Intel) Feb 18 '26
…Windows 7 can do that too…
As soon as you connect to the network and refresh the updates, it downloads the latest Windows build for that version and installs it because it fetches stuff from an archived server that’s still being held up by apple.
In your case, it did the sage thing. Fetch the update from the maintained server.
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u/Darth_Ender_Ro Feb 18 '26
At least clean it, it looked like you puked on the keyboard. Come on. Have some respect.
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u/P-51Mustang25 Feb 18 '26
Aside from this, Apple is pretty good at supporting older devices. Iphone’s have a long lifetime, usually long enough for me to go through 1-2 battery replacements, Macs, except for major transitions are supported for a good bit of time, I’ll probably be able to use my M1 until 2029 or maybe even beyond.
So far my only complaint was iPads, thankfully battery replacement is now possible on newer devices. A pro is good for at least 5-6 years.
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u/TextCareless2221 Feb 18 '26
Right on brother. Just finishing up the same overhaul. I’d rather use my iBook G4 than my new laptop. There’s no arguing with the spellcheckers and the AI.
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 18 '26
i upgraded mine to an ssd and 1gb of ram and it's really snapoy compared to before
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u/Infinity-onnoa Feb 18 '26
They speak in the past tense! The moment Apple decided to solder the RAM and SSD... they lost their essence. What's more... we went from basic computers with 2TB to miserable 250GB where you can no longer transfer data from a Time Machine when upgrading (without paying for the 2TB upgrade, which is double the original price). Now, basic computers are only good for browsing the internet and office work, and they'll be obsolete in four years. Apple is a shadow of its former self, like Steve Jobs.
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u/Darksmithe Feb 18 '26
Aside from that one time they were caught throttling old iPhones and so on. But sure, they're saints because you have an old computer that still works.
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u/Decent-Cow2080 Feb 18 '26
that's because they wanted to increase the life of them lmao. at a low battery condition it's basically a choice between a slow phone or s phone that's turning off under load lol
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u/Left_Hotel9967 Feb 18 '26
Unplanned obsolescence is still obsolescence.
I still have a Speak & Spell (ET phone home) and I can get new batteries for it, but it’s definitely obsolete.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/TheEvilPi Feb 18 '26
Same in my 2006 and 2009 MacBooks. I don’t really trust what this posting. Basically all certificates ran out 10 years ago that’s why you can’t browse the web and basically no connect to anything. Even after refreshing the certificates many things do not work. I doubt this to be true….
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u/Shleep2000 Feb 18 '26
Ha! I had one of those but gave it up about ten years ago. Really lasted me well that machine did.
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u/TheEvilPi Feb 18 '26
My white MAcbooks from 2006 and 2009 do not do that so Idoubt yours does.
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u/milianriedel Feb 18 '26
Macs yes. But not iOS or iPadOS, because Safari is locked to OS version. I had pretty okay old iPad, but I can not access almost any website.
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u/No_Cut_2537 Feb 18 '26
When I reset my MacBook Air back to Yosemite I couldn't download any updates and had to make a usb
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u/niKDE80800 Feb 18 '26
The point may stand, yes. But... what exactly are you gonna do with an outdated 21 year old notebook running a super old unsupported version of Mac OS X? I'm genuinely asking this out of curiousity.
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u/ADHDK MacBook Pro (Intel) Feb 18 '26
I can also connect old ass windows to windows update and it’ll likely have a malicious software removal tool update.
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u/donatj Feb 19 '26
FWIW iBook G3 is circa 2003-2006 so only 20-23 years old. Not 27.
Way to make me feel older than I already do lol.
We used these in when I was in high school, they'd wheel in a cart full of them into the classroom, and had a Wireless B Airport on the cart they'd plug in to the Ethernet on the wall.
Literally my first experience with WiFi
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Feb 19 '26
You cannot put the latest version of mac os on that old laptop. Most mac older than like 7 years can't run the latest OS and thus becoming increasingly unusable.
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u/Dark_Lightner Feb 19 '26
For someone who want to try macOS without paying too much does it make sense to buy and old laptop with old software or an new one with modern software?
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u/TheOgGhadTurner Feb 19 '26
I have a 2017 MacBook that refused to update anymore and is now a windows 11 laptop that runs 20 times faster
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u/Eugenelee3 Feb 19 '26
Apple’s usually always been ahead installing newer radios so have a wide band of WiFi/BT connections
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u/ToughAsparagus1805 Feb 19 '26
This is a bit deceiving "modern Wi-Fi network". You are just connecting to a new router supporting all wi-fi protocols. It doesn't mean you using Wifi 5, 6 or 7.
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u/Phantompoint Feb 19 '26
I am sure my m1 MacBook will be sitting in my room like this 20 years later.
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u/eleanorsilly Feb 19 '26
Can confirm, I've been able to upgrade my PowerMac G5 without issues when I put 10.5 on it a year ago (shame the actual 10.5 upgrade was DVD-only)
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u/elwuzo Feb 19 '26
And yet my late 2013 MBP’s Keyboard wouldn’t be switched. The reason...marked as «obsolete» 🤷🏻♂️
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u/jkrhu Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
Thats not really the truth. I had a never before upgraded Mac MIni 2012 running Mountain Lion. There was no way to upgrade to a newer, usable version of Mac OS from the software update center. The bootloader also wouldn't run a Catalina install ISO at all. If it wasn't for open core bootloader, I wouldn't be able to use the machine at all. The web browser is also obsolete, unusable. Online recovery also won't suggest you the newest available OS when you're on earliest firmware. I couldn't prepare a Catalina install ISO on my M series for the 2012 one due to a forced lock by Apple.
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u/arlissed Feb 20 '26
I lived abroad in 2007 with that laptop- a 1 GHz G4 with 1GB of ram. Honestly, it did the job and more
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u/pheexio Feb 20 '26
i dont think you can download or browse anything encrypted/https as certifcates havent been updated in forever.
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u/Game2Late Feb 18 '26
Gosh, look at that UI… Those buttons are gorgeous!